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Things you can do with a Software Defined Radio (2024)

Fifty Things you can do with a Software Defined Radio 📻 Last week, I went on an adventure through the electromagnetic spectrum! It’s like an invisible world that always surrounds us, and allows us to do many amazing things: It’s how radio and TV are transmitted, it’s how we communicate using Wi-Fi or our phones. And there are many more things to discover there, from all over the world. In this post, I’ll show you fifty things you can find there – all you need is this simple USB dongle and an

Fifty Things you can do with a Software Defined Radio

Fifty Things you can do with a Software Defined Radio 📻 Last week, I went on an adventure through the electromagnetic spectrum! It’s like an invisible world that always surrounds us, and allows us to do many amazing things: It’s how radio and TV are transmitted, it’s how we communicate using Wi-Fi or our phones. And there are many more things to discover there, from all over the world. In this post, I’ll show you fifty things you can find there – all you need is this simple USB dongle and an

Judge unhappy with FCC’s “vague and uninformative” response to DOGE lawsuit

A judge yesterday chided the Federal Communications Commission for its "vague and uninformative" response to a DOGE-related lawsuit and ordered the commission to produce documents sought under the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA). The FCC was sued by journalist Nina Burleigh and Frequency Forward, a group that says it is investigating how Elon Musk's influence in government "is creating unmanageable conflicts of interest within the FCC." Burleigh and Frequency Forward alleged in an April 24 co

Measuring power network frequency using junk you have in your closet

Over the weekend starting on Saturday, the 8th of February 2025, the Baltic states’ electricity grid is switching from being synchronized with the Russian electric grid to being synchronized with the continental European electrical grid. This involves first disconnecting from the Russian grid, then operating a while as an island system, regulating the frequency alone and doing various tests, and finally, synchronizing frequency and phase with the EU grid and throwing the breaker. Which made me w

Transmitting data via ultrasound without any special equipment

There are secret messages flying all around you all the time, being transmitted via, most of the time, electromagnetic waves going from antenna to antenna. ELOs “Secret Messages” is a song about posting conspiracy theories via WiFi. But what if you need to get a few bytes from device A to device B (one of the hard problems in computer science!) and you don’t feel like making sure they’re both connected to the same network? Well, fortunately, another channel is available to us - sound, or for a

Air Conditioners Can Actually Support the Power Grid. Here’s How

As summer arrives, people are turning on air conditioners in most of the U.S. But if you’re like me, you always feel a little guilty about that. Past generations managed without air conditioning – do I really need it? And how bad is it to use all this electricity for cooling in a warming world? If I leave my air conditioner off, I get too hot. But if everyone turns on their air conditioner at the same time, electricity demand spikes, which can force power grid operators to activate some of the

Dancing brainwaves: How sound reshapes your brain networks in real time

What happens inside your brain when you hear a steady rhythm or musical tone? According to a new study from Aarhus University and the University of Oxford, your brain doesn't just hear it -- it reorganizes itself in real time. Every beep, tone and new sound you hear travels from the ear to registering in your brain. But what actually happens in your brain when you listen to a continuous stream of sounds? A new study from Aarhus University and University of Oxford published in Advanced Science r